Do more, say less.

This is about 7-8 years back. All of us colleagues had gathered to bid farewell to our expat Boss who was going back home after a stint of 3 years in India. It was a joyous evening as the Boss, a gentle old soul, shared fond memories of his relocation to India and how he embraced the culture, the chaos and found his way around. He walked around the hall, carrying his plate full of spicy Indian food that he relished and had a few words of encouragement and appreciation for every one of us, individually.

It so happened that one of his close friend from back home was also in India for some other project and was invited to the party. This big fella roared as he entered the hall and almost crushed Boss as he hugged him. After wishing him well, he went straight to the bar and fixed himself a large bourbon. As it happens in most corporate events, local managers circled him quickly, each one too eager to please him, while rest of us juniors fell back in our smaller groups.

The big fella continued to roar and our managers nodded in agreement irrespective of what he said, clinking glasses all along. Then something he said made their group laugh out loud. I heard it and it left me in pain and embarrassment. The fella asked, “so tell me guys, do you still have those power outages?” The managers sheepishly nodded and laughed and drank some more. For me the joyous evening was over. I wished the old Boss well and quietly drifted out to the parking lot.

Our awkward silence hurt me more than the expat’s bombastic demeanor. Sure, he was a bully and said something hurtful, but how did we respond? First, we couldn’t respond, because part of what he said was an uncomfortable truth and we didn’t have a counter. Second, even if we did have an answer we lacked the confidence to give it back. Third, directly or indirectly, our immediate progress was in the hands of this person and hence keeping him happy irrespective of his arrogance was necessary.

Today I recall this incident because for the last three days, I have been listening and reading about our External Affairs Minister and his confident rebuttal of the western media. It so happened that I listened to a PenLaw Professor, who called India a “shithole” and Indian immigrants as, “an undeserving lot who relocate to the west because they don’t have opportunities back home”. There is much hoopla about both the stories in social media and proud Indians, here and abroad, are showering praise on our minister for holding his ground and showering abuses on this lady for being a racist.

Thank you minister, for the eloquent, dignified yet strong response to the western media and to all those hypocrites who want to school the smaller nations in righteousness but are least righteous themselves. Thank you to our social media warriors for giving it back to the lady with a colonial hangover, who looks down upon people of color as some third class citizen from third world countries.

While our new found confidence has enabled us to see the bully in the eye, we are still a long distance from being as efficient and self-sustained as we would like to imagine. So while our minister’s bold speech does sound bad ass or cool, it doesn’t achieve much. The question of energy efficiency, dependency on other nations and all our internal flaws remain more or less the same. Likewise, we may use the choicest words to educate the professor, fact remains that it is we who aspire to immigrate to the west, not the other way around.

So, while we no longer bow down and allow the virtue signaling of western bullies, our focus should remain firmly on our personal interests. Our democratically elected government will do what it can, but it is necessary to remember that our individual efforts are going to shape the world around us. We make our family, our neighborhood, our workplace and our society a better place and effectively we make our country an aspirational destination. What we say will carry more weight when it is supported by what we do and who we are, so better we focus on the action than the speech.

For the sake of it, if I ever get a chance to speak with the big fella, here is what I will say, “Yes Sir, unfortunately we still have those power outages, but we are shifting to clean energy faster than you can imagine. Meanwhile you continue to keep the lights on, all night long at the super-marts, powered by oil and gas procured from you know where. Cheers Sir”.